Eyes of the Cat (38 page)

“Now what would be the fun of that?” A rough hand tangled in her hair, jerking her face back to meet his. “You wouldn’t want to destroy all my hopes of hearing you beg for mercy night after night, would you? I’ve been so looking forward to it.”

“You’ll be looking forever if you expect to get any begging out of me. Dead people are beyond begging.”

“Such melodramatics! Would it encourage you to stay alive if I told you that your lover still was, too? Whether or not he stays that way, however, depends upon you. Any more foolishness and I’ll toss his sleeping mind into a cockroach and crush it under the heel of his own boot.”

“Sleeping?” If it was exactly the information she had been trying to goad out of him, she gave no sign of it. “Is that how you gained control, then?”

“Oh, I would have managed that in any case. I learned mind-control from a master, after all; I was taught by the Panther himself. But Alan’s exhaustion did make things smoother. The moron ran himself and his stallion ragged today trying to gallop me out of his head—and then fell asleep when he stopped for a moment to drink! That’s when I moved to the front. Lucky thing, too, or he might have toppled face first into that spring and drowned.”

“How very convenient,” she murmured, letting herself sink closer into him, as those no-longer-familiar eyes gleamed wolfishly into hers. “But what makes you think he won’t do the same to you when you fall asleep?”

“Because I’m not referring to an ordinary slumber. This is more like a coma.” That low chuckle rumbled again. “And I can keep him in it till doomsday!”

I wonder…
Alan had fallen asleep, had he? It sounded so simple, almost like something one would read in a fairytale, Tabitha mused, scenes from Cinderella…Snow White…Sleeping Beauty drifting past her inner eye as a ravenous mouth ground painfully down and powerful arms squeezed her in a vise.

Alan’s arms…

Alan’s lips…

Jeremy Earnshaw’s kiss—hungry, tortured, terrifyingly tragic.

Her own kiss in response—searing, searching, screaming into his head with the full force of her love—

Alan MacAllister! Wake up, blast it!

And a blast it was as two minds raged together, locking horns on the edge of oblivion—writhing, twisting, straining, tumbling—until one tried furiously to kick loose, and was knocked inescapably over the brink into eternity. And the remaining one completed a kiss that made his wife feel like she’d just fallen out of the arms of hell straight into the heart of paradise.

“Tabitha?”

As the clouds cleared, pulses slowed, and two souls finally surfaced for air, those well-known amber eyes stared down in semi-stunned bewilderment.

“Tabitha, what the devil are you doing all the way out here?”

“I was thirsty and wanted a nice cool drink of spring water,” she said, unsure whether to laugh, cry, or kiss him again. And consequently attempting all three simultaneously.

The combination jolted their recipient into a full, albeit slightly soggy and rumpled, awareness of where he was.

“Good God,” he breathed, dragging reluctantly up out of the second embrace to gaze disheveledly at Tabitha clinging to his neck…the adobe towers standing sentinel in the evening sky…the inner courtyard deep in shadows before them…the long ramp up to the keep, where a minor commotion was just beginning… And ultimately back to the one part of it all that seemed to hold any real interest for him. Two emerald green eyes shining ecstatically into his.

“I feel like I’ve just fought my way through a bloody nightmare,” he muttered, only just beginning to realize that he had. “And I’m half thinking I’d like to do the whole thing over again, simply for the pure joy of waking and seeing you.”

“Well, we could repeat the waking part.” She slid closer against him. “I woke you with a kiss, you know.”

“Was that a kiss?” He chuckled, shifting his own position to better meet hers. “It felt like a keg of gunpowder going off inside me.”

“The best kisses are supposed to feel like that, aren’t they?” Burying her fingers in his hair, she began drawing his head down to hers. “Anyway, it did the trick. Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty.”

It halted his descent barely a breath above her mouth.

“Men aren’t supposed to be beautiful, dear,” she was informed, with a teasing nip at her lower lip. “There’s only one beauty here. And I’m looking at her.”

“Then you’re wasting precious moments that could be spent kissing her,” he was warmly informed in return.

“Ah,
witnesses
, exactly what we need!” a delighted voice informed the world at large.

Or was that statement more specifically for the benefit of the person trudging down the ramp a short pace ahead of the voice? A tall, well built, well dressed man with smoky gray eyes—that were
really
smoking at the moment.

“Tabitha, guess what? Simon has asked me to marry him, and I’ve accepted!”

“I have not!”

“Oh, all right. If you’re going to be nit-picking about it, perhaps I did exaggerate that part a teensy bit,” Kathy Kildare conceded with a slight pout as she pulled herself and Simon to a dramatic halt before the bench. “But the rest is true.” She brightened. “I
have
agreed to marry you—whosever idea it was—so why split hairs? It’s such a perfect solution. If I marry you, I won’t be able to marry any of Angus’s toads—I mean sons. And you’re not the sort of man to cart his own wife off to prison.”

“Aren’t I?”

Her laughter rippled like spring rain—soaking him to the skin, if one were to gauge by his expression.

“Honestly, Smoke darling, don’t be dim. You’re far too much of a gentleman for that. Besides, it would tarnish your sterling reputation to have Mrs. Simon Elliott behind bars. So let’s have no more dilly-dallying. You know you’re mad for me, anyway, you silly thing.”

“Once again, you’ve gotten part of it right, little girl.” He grinned dangerously. “I am definitely
mad
.”

Her only response was to level the Derringer she held on him and recite clearly, “I, Kathleen Kildare, promise to be your wife, Simon Elliott… Was that adequate, Lord Alan?” she asked with a guileless batting of blue eyes.

“’Twill serve,” he replied, a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re a big help,” the other man said.

“Don’t be such a grouch,” Kathy chided him. “It’s your turn now.”

“And what if I refuse?” That slow grin mocked her. “You’re not really looking for a murder charge, are you?”

“Of course not.” The aim of the Derringer dropped to a point several inches below his navel. “Who said anything about murder? I wouldn’t kill you, honey boy. Just
maim
you.” She fluttered her lashes. “Now make up your mind. It’s either marry me. Or forget about women altogether.”

The slow grin almost gave itself a rupture, before abruptly relaxing into a long, low laugh. “Oh, what the hell. We’re hardly talking a bona fide union, anyway. You
do
realize that, don’t you, pussycat, that a contract agreed to under threat is not legally binding?”

“Um, Simon…” Alan began.

“Please, no comments from the peanut gallery. Since you’ve obviously no intention of helping here, MacAllister, just let me get it over with.” Simon waved him off. “I, Simon Elliott, promise to be your husband, Kathleen Kildare. Now
give me
that damned Derringer!” He latched on to her wrist with one hand while plucking the weapon loose with the other. “You are under arrest, Miss Kildare.”

“Mrs. Elliott,” she corrected, unperturbed. “Threat or no, it’s a proper marriage under MacAllister law. To make it otherwise, Alan would have to declare his own wedding invalid, since he employed…um, similar tactics.”

“Aye, lad. I did try to warn you.”

“I’m afraid you’ve put your foot in it, Captain Elliott.” Tabitha grinned, unable to resist telling him the same thing he’d once told her.

“Very cute.” He grinned wryly back. “Why don’t you come kiss the groom, then, Lady MacAllister? Perhaps we could start a
new
tradition.”

“Not if you want to keep your front teeth, laddie,” Alan said, with the biggest grin of all. “I’d be thinking of kissing your own bonny bride, if I were you.”

“Oh… Do I
have
to?” Simon’s grin went sour.

“Absolutely not!” Kathy assured him, suddenly the soul of accommodation. “You don’t have to do anything of the kind. I’ve always thought it rather a tiresome custom, myself. And so unhygienic. Why—”

“On the other hand”—he raked her from head to toe with a look that had sent sterner females than herself scurrying for the smelling salts—“seeing as we
are
married, I suppose it’ll have to happen sooner or later.”

“But there’s no need to be hasty about it.
Later
is fine with me.” She backed up as he stalked toward her. “I’d been thinking more in terms of a…a
Platonic
sort of marriage, anyway. Have you read much Plato by any chance?” she inquired hopefully.

“Tons of him. I generally read a lot at night, you see—to help me sleep. Of course, now that I have a wife, I’ll have something
else
to do to help me sleep. Won’t I,
Mrs. Elliott
?”

“Oh, God…” Mrs. Elliott gulped, turning to flee just a fraction too late. Leaning away with all her weight, she was reeled back by a granite grip on her forearm. “You know, maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea, after all.”

“On the contrary, it’s beginning to appeal to me more and more,” a bedroom baritone told her. “As for how
hot
it is…”

By the time he was through kissing her, she looked fried to a cinder—fully
smoked
and hanging up to dry.

“There! Now you know what you’ve let yourself in for.”

“I do?” Kathy asked vaguely, hanging in his arms like a ragdoll.

“Yes. And you’d better get used to it, Mrs. Elliott, because there’s a lot more where
that
came from.”

“There is,” she said blankly, hanging in his arms like a ragdoll that had lost half its stuffing.

“You can bet your bustle there is, pussycat. I’m going to keep you so
occupied
from now on, you won’t have the energy to even think about getting into trouble.”

“I won’t?”

“Never mind, Kathleen. We’ll discuss this again in the morning.” Grinning, he swung her off her feet and high against his chest. “For now, just say good night to Lord and Lady MacAllister, and we’ll be off to beddy-bye.”

Turning a glassy eyed stare toward Alan and Tabitha, she mumbled obediently, “Good night to Lord and Lady MacAllister, and we’ll be off to beddy-bye.”

“Close enough.” Simon chuckled. With a parting grin at the couple on the bench, he carried her up the ramp and into the keep.

“I’m impressed,” Alan remarked, gazing after them.

So am I, Tabitha thought, slowly shaking her head over the wink Kathy had shot her over Simon’s shoulder.

“What is that sly little Cat up to now?” she wondered aloud, leaning into a muscular torso as a warm arm began drawing her close.

“Cat?” The arm about her stiffened. “Bloody hell, I’d almost forgotten,” Alan muttered, sounding like he wished he had.

“Forgot what?” Tabitha asked, staring up in concern at a face gone ashen. “You’re giving me goosebumps. Whatever is the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

His laugh nearly tumbled them both onto the ground.

“Do you ever get tired of hitting so many bull’s-eyes with that well aimed mind of yours?”

“Please. Don’t mention anything to me about minds being
aimed
anywhere.”

“I’ll agree to that, if you’ll promise to say nothing of cats or ghosts… Because that’s how I realized your danger last night,” he admitted reluctantly. “A big black tom suddenly appeared in the entrance to the great hall and sat there staring at me. Looking into his eyes, I somehow just knew what was happening in the outer court… But I’m certain no one saw that cat save myself.”

This time it was Tabitha’s laughter that almost landed them in a heap.

“Oh, don’t tell me that you think he’s a demon, too. I assumed you knew all about him. Why else would he have been riding around on your sh—”

Why else, indeed?

Oh, I’m such an idiot. That makes twice now he tried to warn me about Jeremy, and twice that I ignored him. Thank goodness Alan showed better sense.

Grinning up at him, she explained, “Your castle
is
haunted, but not by some devil-spirit in a cat suit. Caliban is more like a guardian angel. An earthly angel, though—a flesh and blood one. I’m surprised Molly has never told you his heritage. She must be familiar with his breed. It’s very rare and nearly extinct now, but—”

“Tabitha, if you’re referring to what I think you are, that cat’s breed
is
extinct. My grandmother herself can tell you how—”

“Who? Molly? Oh my, yes! She’s an absolute treasure trove of information. She’ll be able to tell you all sorts of fascinating things. You’re so lucky to have her for a grandmother-in-law, Tabitha,” a cheery voice interjected, as its owner leaped lightly off the end of the ramp and ran past carrying a small box. “Do say good-bye to her for me, won’t you? And name your daughters after me! You can call them Mary, Cassandra, Monique…”